sustainable achievement of an organisational mission, goals, and objectives. These defi-
nitions are conclusively derived from the American and European schools of thought.
The evolution and development of human resource management has relied on two
traditions. These are the American, alias Harvard and European under the leadership of
British academics, particularly from the University of Lancaster.
The American school alias ‘Harvard School’
The works by Boxall (1992), Beer & Spector (1985) and Beer et al. (1994) are consid-
ered to be some of the main foundations of different concepts and disciplines which
shape the scope of human resource management in America, and which were later
adopted, adapted, or dropped by other scholars worldwide. Indeed, they represent what
is often termed as American school of thought and contribution in the understanding of
human resource management in contemporary organisations. The main building blocks
are crystallised into four categories. The first involves a focus on stakeholders ‘interests,
according to stakeholders’ theory, organisations that strive to maximise key stake-
holders’ interests flourish more than those that pursue purely performance-oriented ob-
jectives. This argument rests on the fact that organisations exist to serve different stake-
holders with different interests but which may not necessarily be explicit. In this case,
human resource functions have to maximise the interests of key stakeholders who, in
turn, pay back by steering the organisation towards success.
The second category is the balancing of stakeholders interests. This category is
linked to the above argument but the focus here is on the need to take specific initiatives
to ensure that, although there are stakeholders who matter more than others, if some
stakeholders feel that there are some who benefit more than others, they may create ten-
sions, dissatisfactions and ultimately erode commitment. Therefore, human resource
managers should ensure employees’ interests are balanced with those of other stake-
holders.
The third category is positive influence on employees. Employees are central in in-
fluencing survival and the growth of an organisation and hence human resource func-
tions should exert positive influence on employees.
Finally, the fourth is strategic approach to managing employees. Organisations will
remain competitive if they focus on the organisational strategic issues and their envi-
ronment. Strategic approach includes formulation of organisational mission, goals, ob-
jectives, strategies, and targets. This approach has strongly influenced the now famous
strategic human resource management approach, which we shall look into in more detail
in chapter 2.
The UK school alias European school
Storey (1989) has described the role of David Guest and Colleagues in shaping human
resource management discourses in Europe. These authors consider the following key
critical areas of focus in human resource management:
- The need to marry business and human resource strategies, that is, human resource
strategies should be developed and save business strategies. - Strong organisational culture for employee commitment. The assumption here is that
a committed employee will put in the maximum effort required for the desired organ-
isational performance. - Obsession for Quality. In a world of increasing competition, new customer tastes,
and choice, no organisation can survive without addressing issues of quality. Quality